


Lodestar

by yuutsuhime



Category: VA-11 Hall-A (Video Game)
Genre: Belligerent Friendship, Braided Narrative, Character Study, Domestic Violence, F/F, Heroin, Hopeful Ending, Hostage Situations, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Mutual Pining, Police Brutality, Queerplatonic Relationships, Relationship Study, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Tarot References & Allusions, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26371513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuutsuhime/pseuds/yuutsuhime
Summary: After surviving horrific police brutality, Stella and Sei develop a deep, unspoken bond throughout childhood. Years later, their silence reaches a breaking point when Sei is held hostage in a violent uprising. Told in two interleaved halves.
Relationships: Sei Asagiri & Stella Hoshii, Sei Asagiri/Stella Hoshii
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Lodestar

**Author's Note:**

> Chapters 0 through 8 are interleaved with chapters 9 through 17. This is intended to be read in the presented order, but the chronological order is also meaningful.
> 
> I'd like to content warn that the themes of trauma, police brutality, and drug addiction are written based on myself, actual people I've known, and actual events that have occurred around me. I never write to cause distress, but I am writing to process my own grief, rage, and fear; and that can be distressing anyway.

###  0.

When it's over, Sei clutches the mangled mass of Stella's eyeball all the way to the hospital. Cages it in her hand like a star.

###  IX.

Stella is drunk, twenty-one, and spends too much time on the Internet. Anonymously, of course. In the business world Stella is just a vapid daddy's girl with a cybernetic eye and sex appeal, but it's still a professional image to uphold.

Stella can always spare the dignity, anyway.

"Good work," her father says. The car takes a right out of the parking ramp.

The driver is a man named Buster, who looks exactly like Stella's father if Stella's father had been a bouncer for the mob instead of a lifelong businessman. Her father had aged gracefully, with courtesy etched in wrinkles around his eyes; he dressed in nondescript grey suits, with nondescript pants and nondescript belts and an absurd patterned tie that Stella had gifted him when she was twelve. Buster was the reverse: a man carved out of stone with a penchant for gaudy suits and unusual prosthetic legs, who communicated mostly through grunts. He was a good man, Stella's father had said. She believed him.

"I'll always remind you that you're never beneath anyone," Stella's father says.

"I'm a businesswoman," Stella says. "And a fantastic performer. They'll always be scum; I might as well leverage it."

"I don't disagree," Stella's father says with a curt laugh. His Japanese accent comes out more when he's tired. By the time they cross the bridge into Uptown he's fallen asleep, his head swaying with the movement of the car like a buoy.
    
    
    Stella@23:52
    | It's over.
    
    Sei@23:55
    | Um... What's over?
    
    Stella@23:55
    | The business... thing.
    
    Sei@23:57
    | Oh, the sexy bartender thing. How are you?
    
    Stella@23:58
    | Kinda weird. You know the thing that happens when I've been in business mode for too long and then I have trouble coming back to Stella mode? That's happening.
    
    Sei@00:02
    | Do you need to ground somehow? Maybe you could try breathing exercises?
    
    Stella@00:02
    | Maybe. Are you going to do them too?
    
    Sei@00:07
    | I'm sorry, I can't right now. I don't have much oxygen left and some of the kids still aren't accounted for. Later? We can get an early morning snack?
    
    Stella@00:07
    | Oh, sorry. I didn't realize you were still at work.
    
    Sei@00:12
    | I'm not. An apartment got firebombed down the street and I'm volunteering. We already got rid of the fuel and a ladder truck is coming soon, so it'll probably be under control in an hour or so, I think?
    
    Stella@00:12
    | You're amazing. Please stay safe. I'll text you later?
    
    Sei@00:15
    | No, no, it's totally fine. I'm always gonna be here for you if I can be.
    
    Stella@00:16
    | Thanks, but it can wait. Those kids need a hero.
    
    Sei@00:17
    | Got it. Let me know if you need anything!
    

Buster merges onto the highway and accelerates, pressing Stella back into the inflexible leather seat. All in all, this wasn't the worst crowd of drunk businessmen she'd manipulated. They hadn't made any remarks about the eye, for once.

Stella isn't drunk enough to let herself _really_ become a nuisance to Sei, so she dumps everything on the Internet instead.
    
    
     **How do I know if I have a crush?**
    
    | She's my best friend and she's an amazing person, and we've been through so much together, but I'm not sure if I just deeply love her as a friend or if I've like, actually fallen in love with her... Sorry this is embarrassing, I just don't really know what to do >/////<
    
    | Oh honey...
    
    | you're both women aren't you
    
    OP
    | Yeah...
    
    | Anyone who would make a post like this clearly has a crush on her best friend.
    
    OP
    | What if it's a self fulfilling prophecy and I'm just feeling this because I **want** to be in love with **anyone** and it's all just confirmation bias applied to platonic love, and I'm creating and believing this elaborate lie about her because I'm lonely and terrible at communication, and it's not actually the right kind of feeling to act on?
    
    | what the fuck are you talking about
    
    | bro the kind of questions you're asking are not platonic questions
    
    OP
    | I just don't want to be wrong and ruin our friendship over nothing...
    
    | Would you rather wait until the moment has passed and then regret it forever?
    
    | you dont need to make it all meta just pin her to the wall and put your tongue in her mouth
    
    | Not gonna happen, OP is clearly a bottom
    
    OP
    | WHAT??!??!?
    
    | or ask her to a concert or something idk. just feel it out.
    
    OP
    | I guess... ><
    
    | Take her to a lesbian bar! Or Valhalla if you want to be ~~a coward~~ plausibly deniable.
    
    | ask her if she wants to eat out and see how she reacts
    
    | You don't have to figure it out right away. The truth is that you're confused and you get to be there.
    
    | op have you even accepted that you arent straight
    
    OP
    | Honestly... I don't know...
    
    | i swear to god i am going to kick you in the shins
    
    **This thread has been closed**
    

Sei isn't online for the rest of the night. Stella waits for far longer than is appropriate, and eventually considers the idea that everything with Sei is probably way more complicated than she expected.

Like every conflagration, there's probably something deep inside worth apologizing for.

###  I.

"Don't kick me," Sei groans. Her lungs are full of honey and glass, and her head is a heavy, bruised fruit.

"Well, you wouldn't wake up, dummy," Stella says. "So I kicked you."

"Stella," Sei says. She smiles so hard it cracks.

* * *

The next day is a mix of unconsciousness, Doctor van Kamp's handwriting, and Sei's mother screaming at news reporters in the hallway.

"She's _twelve_!" Sei's mother says. Her voice is going hoarse around the edges, like a dog's bark after too many injections. "They're _twelve_! Why did someone do this to them—they're just kids, my _God_! "

"And you're alleging that a White Knight—"

" _Yes_ , it was a cop! How many times do I have to say it? An officer crushed my daughter's ribcage and _gouged out her friend's eye_ after he held them hostage on a fucking _playground_ , and if they won't prosecute—listen, I've made a career out of putting sick animals down. So what if a different White Knight saved them? So what if he was a diseased, fallen hero who deserves sympathy for his shitty life? Get a mop and cry about it."

Doctor van Kamp raises his eyebrow, and exchanges a knowing glance with Sei. "Is she that scary when you don't do your homework?"

"Nope!" Sei says. "What are you writing?"

"Oh, just notes. Vitals. All of your deepest secrets that I sucked out of your brain while you were sleeping."

"Oh, alright," Sei says. "When when is Stella coming back? Are they still trying to put her eye back in?"

"Oh, probably. It keeps squirting out and bouncing around the room, so they're bringing in another guy to help push."

"That's awful! I hope it works."

Doctor van Kamp blinks. "Say, Sei. Can I check if you're still alive?"

"Yes, yes," Sei says.

Doctor van Kamp snakes a stethoscope under Sei's shirt and presses it against her back like a frozen ear. "Alright. Take a deep breath for me."

Sei puts her harmonica in her mouth and blows as loudly as possible. Doctor van Kamp jumps and drops the stethoscope, and Sei laughs so deeply that she coughs up blood and has to go back to the emergency room.

* * *

Stella comes back to the ward with bandages around her eye and the side of her head.

"Why did you _do_ that?" Stella accuses.

"I'm eating apples because I'm trying to see if it actually keeps the doctor away," Sei says. "Do you want one, too?"

"No, stupid! Why did you get hurt? I told you to run away and instead you had to be _stupid_! Why are you so stupid!"

"I'm not stupid!" Sei shouts. "I was just trying to help you!"

"I didn't _want_ your help," Stella says. She stomps and sits on her bed, facing the wall in silence until her attention span times out. Then, she asks under her breath, "You're okay, right?"

"I'm fine," Sei says.

"No, you're not," Stella says. "It says that your liver, spleen, and kidneys are all contused and that you broke four ribs. It also says you have acute stress disorder."

"Huh. Why do they think it's cute?"

"That's just what it says on your bed, dummy! You're in the hospital; how can you be fine?"

"Because I'm fine, okay? Are you?"

"I'm in the hospital too! What do you think!"

Sei thinks. "I'm glad you're okay, Stella."

"Whatever," Stella says. "You, too."

* * *

Sei wakes up panicking in her mother's arms.

"He came back," Sei gasps. "He was—"

"No. I'm right here, Sei," her mother says. "It's just a nightmare, okay? You're in control now."

"No, it's not. It wasn't. Where's Stella? Does he still—is he going to—"

"No, sweetie, no, she's right there, see? She's sleeping right now."

"Yeah, and she's still hurt."

"Sei, you saved her _life_. You did _everything_."

Sei makes a frustrated face. "So how do I know he's not actually going to come back?"

"Because... If he does, I'll hit him with this bat," Sei's mother says, and brandishes it.

Sei looks down at her quilt. "That's my dad's, isn't it?"

Sei can tell her mother is smiling on purpose, and not because she's happy. "Yeah," she says. "And if he comes back too, he'll have to get in line."

* * *

Sei draws a picture of the hole in Stella's head where her eye used to be. Uses the pencil so hard she almost scrapes through the paper. Doctor van Kamp asks her a few questions and she can't remember drawing it.

"You've drawn a picture every day for the past week," Doctor van Kamp says.

"I don't know," Sei says. That's what she says when she locks herself.

Doctor van Kamp blinks, and his face softens. Then he sees the apple cores lines up by Sei's desk.

"It doesn't work," Sei pouts.

Doctor van Kamp narrows his eyes. "You're not getting rid of me _that_ easily. I'll always come back and annoy you some more. My wife might have left me but you're trapped until I say so."

Sei sticks out her tongue.

"Anyway," Doctor van Kamp says, "You're experiencing too much pain again, and you need to stop. If you don't drink this right now we'll secretly put it in your food later, and the betrayal will make it worse." 

* * *

Stella screams into the mirror when they take the bandages off. Her mother and father stand behind her and try to look happy. It doesn't work.

"I don't want it!" Stella screams.

"Can you see, Stella?" Stella's dad asks.

"I don't care if I can see! I don't want to be a robot!"

"This is a new eye that we ordered for you, okay? You're still Stella. You just—"

Stella screams again and runs out of the room. She can only cry out of one eye, now. It's not enough.

* * *

Stella leaves the hospital a week before Sei does.

"Are we still going to be friends?" Sei says.

Stella pauses, and her father answers, "Stella doesn't know if she wants to spend a lot of time playing outside anymore. But, we'll find a way. You're her best friend, even if she won't admit it herself."

Sei grins at Stella as she glowers back.

Stella's father turns to Sei's mother and says, "Tell us when she's back in action, okay?"

"Of course," Sei's mother says. "And again, about the bills—"

"No. Money is just money, and these are our kids. There is no debt between friends," Stella's father says. "And Sei, if you get lonely, Stella wanted you to have our phone number, so—"

"Daddy, _you can't just_ —"

"Thank you," Sei's mother says, and smiles her full smile. Sei hasn't seen that in a while.

"They'll be okay," Stella's father says. "I promise. And Stella? Don't you have something else you wanted to say?"

Stella stares at the floor.

###  X.

"I'm sorry I called you stupid," Stella blurts.

"I'll be fine," Sei says. She's already said it three times: once inside the bar, once after Stella called her _a stupid, stupid woman_ , and again as they sat together on the icy curb to wait for the car.

Stella has had slightly more than her limit in alcohol, and she slumps dramatically into the backseat.

"Hey, peg-leg," Stella says. Buster is driving with his prosthesis in his lap, looking everything like a disassembled pirate and nothing like a bodyguard. He gives Stella a thumbs-up and closes the partition between the front and back seats. A modicum of privacy.

Sei buckles both of their seatbelts while Stella stares wistfully out the window.

"Here's what I should have said," Stella says. "Your colonel is a sexual harasser, an asshole, and a tool, and he's ordering you, as a White Knight, to relay information from the White Knights to a bank that's supposed to be a target for an unknown anti-White Knight terror group. That makes me feel fucked up."

"I get it," Sei says.

"First responders are one thing. It's dangerous, but I'm okay with it because you're not a fucking _cop_. But you know about all the shady shit that goes on, and you know I know, and now you're being asked to _do_ shady cop shit that puts _you_ in danger, and you're telling me you're just... going to do it? That also makes me feel fucked up."

"I—", Sei starts. "I have to save _people_ , Stella. I have to. I need this job."

"No, you don't. You save people all the time—"

"Because I still have my resources when I'm off the clock!"

"How are you going to protect yourself? Are you going to follow orders even if it means suicide?"

"I'm trying to make the world better, okay? I can't do that if I get fired for insubordination, and—"

"No, I mean: are you just going to do whatever they tell you to, and pretend you have power over it because you're a good fucking person? Gods, Sei, you barely even have _money_. Even if you did, my daddy—I mean, even my dad can't change the world."

"I'm not trying to fix everything! I'm just trying to fix _anything_. Even if I just save one more person, it's worth it."

Stella picks at her nails. "Sei, if you don't make it, what happens to me? What am I supposed to do without you?"

"That's too sad to plan for," Sei mumbles. "I'm going to be fine. I promised you after it's done, we'd go out for ice cream. I don't break promises."

Stella deflates. "I can't stop you, can I?"

"I'll be fine," Sei repeats, and then smiles. "Let's plan for that."

###  II.

The way back from Sei's school avoids the playground in an awkward detour: a weed-ridden series of blocky walls and neighborhood textures, connected by a septic drainage channel alongside the street. Sei sucks the dregs of ice cream through the point of her waffle cone and throws what's left in the trash outside her mother's veterinary clinic.

"Why didn't you eat the cone?" Stella says.

Sei makes a face. "What? Why would I ever do that?"

"What are you talking about? You're supposed to."

"It's edible?"

Stella sighs in exasperation. "Yes, Sei. It's edible. That's why I eat mine."

"Oh," Sei laughs. "I thought you were just being weird. Like those kids who eat paper."

"I'm not weird," Stella says, and brushes her bangs over her cybernetic eye.

A list of weird things about Stella:

  1. She has real cat ears on the top of her head because her parents did something with her chromosomes before she was born.

  2. She's convinced all of her younger cousins that she's the reincarnation of Santa.

  3. Whenever she wants to say something important she tries to telepathically communicate by thinking about it really intensely, and never actually says what she wants.

  4. Then she blames Sei for not getting it.




"Are you cheating on your homework?" Stella accuses.

"Yeah," Sei says. "I'm supposed to do special ed homework with my mom, but she's always too busy. I usually just copy the parent worksheet. But she _said_ I could because the school is ableist."

"I can't believe this," Stella says. She fishes the cone out of the trash and takes a small bite. "Do you ever _actually_ study?"

"Nah. I never solve made-up problems if I can solve real ones."

As if on cue, the desk phone rings, and Sei answers: "Asagiri Veterinary Clinic, this is Sei."

Sei nods and makes a couple weird faces and the screams, "Mom! There's a weirdo on the phone who says he's a dog and he's trying to make an appointment for himself!"

"Tell him I'll believe it when I see it!" Sei's mom shouts from the back room.

"He wants to talk to the manager!"

"Goddammit," Sei's mom seethes as she storms into the lobby with an unconscious cat. "Sorry, girls. Stella, help yourself to anything from the fridge, okay?"

"Why can't I have anything in the fridge," Sei says.

"Because you live here, sweetie," Sei's mom says, and shuts herself in the office with the phone.

"Stella basically lives here," Sei grumbles, and Stella sticks out her tongue.

Stella opens the refrigerator. "Oh. Cat food."

"Yup! The people fridge is in the back."

"Sei... Does your mom think I'm actually a cat?"

"No, she knows about the cat boom. She just thinks you're a designer baby."

"I'm weird, aren't I?"

Sei shrugs. "I guess, yeah."

"No, I mean... I don't _want_ to be weird. I never wanted to look like this, or have _this_ in my face, and everyone talks about it all the time and treats me like I'm special. That doesn't happen to normal girls."

"Oh, do you have problems with bullies, too?"

Stella's ears flatten against her head. "I don't know. They might just be right."

"Well, if I see any bullies I'll beat them up," Sei grins. "I always win."

"Don't," Stella says. "It's just violence."

Sei pouts. "Yeah, but it works. They stopped."

Stella thinks again. "Hey," she says. "Do you want to know the truth?"

Sei nods.

Stella keeps thinking for a while. Never quite figures out what to say.

###  XI.

Sei makes it to the bank early and spends a half-hour loitering in the corridor outside the bank manager's office. The upper floors of the Apollo Trust Bank are a mess of stuffy cubicles and beige computer hardware: a stark difference from the polished marble and twenty-foot ceilings on the ground floor. It's an atypical building for Sei to visit on the job, mainly because it isn't on fire or collapsing, and she tries not to pace or think about Stella. Especially not Stella's anxiety.

It's the kind wait her teenage self would have spent chain smoking. 

Twenty minutes past the appointment time, the bank manager swings the door open and drawls: "Now we'll see what's so important that it couldn't have been communicated _any_ other way."

"Yes, sir. Master Specialist Sei P. Asagiri, of the 765th Division Valkyrie—"

"Oh, dispense with the formality. You're a White Knight, why are you here?"

"Under orders from Colonel—"

"To the point, please."

"This chip contains a direct message for you."

The manager sighs, and takes another sip of lukewarm coffee. "Hardly an ordinary protocol. What's the occasion?"

"I'll admit I'm curious myself—"

"Hand it over, please. Good day."

"I'm sorry, but I've been ordered to wait here until the decryption—"

"Then wait," the manager sighs. He inserts the chip into the computer terminal beside his desk. "Interesting. Decryption error. Mismatched key, please verify the identity of the sender and receiver and try again."

"Wow, what does that mean?" Sei says.

"You tell me, Master Specialist."

"Sei P. Asagiri of—"

"Of whichever Valkyrie justice corps, of course. I heard you the first time. Now listen closely: Your credentials are valid and your appearance matches your ID, but something here is amiss. We've hardly the time to play games when rumors abound."

"It's really weird that it doesn't work! He told me that this was so simple, even I could do it. If I can help—"

"So you're a genuine fool, and not a painfully dogged liar," the manager says. "Connect me to your colonel and we'll get to the bottom of this."

"Right on it," Sei says, and unlocks her cell phone. Her last text to Stella is still on the screen, marked as read.

A second later, the power in the bank cuts out.

###  III.

"The news says the power should be back by morning," Stella says. "I know you didn't plan to spend the night."

"I didn't," Sei says.

"The blizzard is really strong," Stella says. She's struggling for words, and comes up short. "It might be dangerous to drive. Maybe you shouldn't."

"Are you inviting me to sleep over?"

"I—I mean..."

Stella looks at the floor until Sei figures it out and pulls the extra blankets out of the hall closet. "The first thing we need," Sei says, "Is to stay warm. If the power is out, that usually means the heat is out, too, unless your house still uses gas or has a backup generator I don't know about."

Stella blinks. "How do you always know exactly what to do?"

"It's in the Junior Valkyrie Corps training manual! My mom got me an old one so I'd always know how to help!"

"Oh, because of the jumper cable thing?"

"I didn't hurt anyone!"

"Yes, you did! You zapped yourself so bad the skin on your leg peeled off!"

"That doesn't matter! I didn't hurt anyone _else_."

Stella hugs her own legs to her chest, and Sei offers part of her blanket.

"What?" Stella blurts.

"What? The manual says if you're ever stuck in the cold, you need to huddle together with other people and use each other's body heat to keep your core warm. If you stay alone, you're more likely to get hypothermia."

Stella hesitates, and eventually wriggles under the blanket like she's never been in control of her body before, face burning somewhere in the darkness. "Fine. I did it. But not because I wanted to, or anything."

"That's survival," Sei laughs. "There's loads of things people have to do sometimes. Like drinking their own pee."

"EEW!" Stella shrieks. "I would never do that!"

"But you can't die for such a stupid reason!"

"I'm not drinking my pee."

"This isn't about the pee!" Sei says. "No matter what, you have to survive. You can't give up, ever."

After Sei stops, she looks into Stella's robot eye, and then into both of them. Snow builds against the windows in drifts, slowly burying the house and everything in it.

"Sorry," Stella says.

In response, Sei lets her head rest against Stella's shoulder.

"Are you cold?" Stella whispers. What she means is that every time they've taken their shirts off around each other, she tries to see if Sei's ribs healed the right way, or if the incision scars on her side are finally turning the same color as the rest of her skin. If anything is normal again. If it didn't matter anymore.

"A little," Sei says.

It ends like the hospital all over again. Like two beds pushed together, kicking each other through sleep, scared and fitful. Safe.

###  XII.

Stella is in Valhalla when she sees the news. Disaster Prevention System deployed at the Apollo Trust Bank; 30 trapped. Outside, smoke is heavy on the breeze and Stella doesn't realize what's happening until it's far worse than she planned for.

Twenty minutes later, Buster screeches to a halt in Stella's father's bulletproof car.

"Downtown," Stella orders. "Casanova district."

"No," Buster says.

"No, you aren't listening! You have to drive downtown! Sei is in the bank and I need to—"

"And there's nothing we can do."

"And so what, I just sit here safe while my—my best friend could fucking _die_ —"

"It's not safe," Buster says. "We can't lose both of you. We have to go. Sit in the front."

"Gods, what if she's scared—"

"Stella, get in the car," Buster barks.

Stella does, and checks the Internet with trembling hands.
    
    
     **what the fuck is happening at the apollo bank**
    
    | channel 3 reporting, not on scene yet. apparently someone tried to hack the bank's database and now 30 people are stuck inside. the bank is locked down with no power and someone said there's an assassin or bomber? can anyone confirm? is it a terror attack, or just a hack?
    
    | ctu spotted on main street is converging with other units from the neon district and uptown. they seem to be setting a perimeter around the bank. it's definitely a full anti-terror response. hopefully just anticipating the worst-case scenario.
    
    | would anybody close be able to livestream?
    
    | Someone already set that up: link
    
    | voice sounds familiar, is the streamer that guy who did the riot coverage last year?
    
    | It's the same person but now she's a girl
    
    | billboards downtown just went out. seems like it's more than just the bank. we've got cops in full riot gear saying there's a curfew
    
    | There's a bomber in the building and their manifesto is being hacked onto the billboards. They want the QUINCY administration to resign and the White Knights to be abolished. They are holding hostages.
    
    | Anon just commented on stream that the bomber's manifesto is almost word-for-word taken from last year's protests.
    
    | is the threat just empty hatred of the police, or do they have power beyond just a bomb? what the fuck is in the bank anyway?
    
    | Don't know. Do we have a scanner on the white knights?
    
    | All white knight chatter is encrypted. We usually have to brute force the key if we can't find an actual white knight who didn't keep their account secure. Working on it.
    
    | how do we know there's actually a bomber, and not just a hacker taking advantage of the lockdown situation from outside? afaik nobody from inside the bank can communicate so we don't have eyewitnesses at all.
    
    | things are deteriorating outside the bank. tear gas deployed and rubber bullets
    
    | rubber bullets are just regular bullets with some coating. they're not going to bounce off you. if you don't have adequate protection or health insurance GET OUT
    
    | About 5.4GB of information was just leaked to accompany the manifesto.
    
    | 5.4GB? Could take months to process...
    
    | not at all. this isn't a mass of unrelated data with a few secrets inside. every single record is incriminating. it's not just financial information. we've got collusion with the justice system, bribery, hush money, espionage, everything. wouldn't be surprised if this is a zaibatsu power grab that's designed to end with corporate cops in charge of all policing. for someone who hates all cops they sure did choose to fuck the white knights in particular. absolutely nothing on zaibatsu cops, not at all suspicious!!!
    
    | how do we know the data aren't bs? you can sell anything these days with machine learning, especially in the middle of a crisis
    
    | It looks like some sort of bot was trying to wipe records just as the hack happened. An impossible number of manual deploys from what looks to be the branch manager's account, all in a few minutes before the power dropped. What's interesting is that it targeted a very specific set of customer accounts... guess who? I'd say it's likely that white knights tried everything to to scrub the evidence in some sort of hail mary. Too bad the database was append-only :)
    
    | that's still part of the leak. my point stands, it could be bullshit.
    
    | All the documents are electronically notarized. If that doesn't convince you it's real, look at how the white knights are responding.
    
    | ctu is moving away from the bank???
    
    | wear goggles if you're on the streets, they're aiming for the eyes. just saw a guy get a tear gas canister shot into his head
    
    | They're calling it a riot on channel 3.
    
    | All the escalations we've seen are from the White Knights. How is this a riot?
    
    | because the white knights are rioting
    
    | it's going to hell outside the bank. looks like protesters put a noose around a white knight effigy, hung it off a traffic light, and set it on fire
    
    | That's not an effigy, that's an actual cop
    
    | turn your phones off, cell towers downtown seem to be hijacked. they'll track your connection and it'll be enough to convict. cover your faces and don't take pictures/video that can identify anyone
    
    | oh my god. they declared a curfew beginning two hours ago and are threatening to shoot on sight
    
    | tanks sighted on main. GET OFF THE FUCKING STREET NOW
    
    | this isn't a riot, it's a rebellion. the knights know they're fucked and this is all one last killing spree.
    
    | if you are just protesting they are going to kill you on purpose because they can and they want to. If you aren't here for guerilla warfare go home or hide NOW
    
    | buildings are getting lit up, no first responders can get through
    
    | valkyrie corps are still cops. let it all burn.
    
    | Does anyone downtown still have internet?
    
    | idk I'm in uptown now, but signals were fucked. it's a fucking massacre on the street.
    
    | Channel 3 just cut out, everything's about to go dark
    
    **This thread could not be displayed. Please check your Internet connection and try again.**
    

On the bridge to Uptown, Buster starts steering the car with his knees and loads a pistol with his hands. The city burns in the rear-view across the river, and Stella thinks about how Sei described her job once. _Sometimes,_ she'd said, _I just think that fires are really beautiful. When I'm in a burning building, I pretend I'm getting a warm hug from a friend I've known all my life. Then I feel safer. After we put it out, I almost miss it._

By the time the drive ends, the power is out everywhere. Stella paces around her bedroom like a helicopter, droning around and around in the same pattern until she's drenched in cold sweat. This was it. This was the one night Stella could have finally been useful to Sei, and she wasn't.

The fires burn so long that Stella can't tell when the night ends.

###  IV.

The light is still on in the veterinary clinic when Sei returns from her martial arts class, which is weird. As Sei stows her backpack behind the front desk, a man Sei has never seen before stumbles from the office, which is weirder. The man's hair is grey like his stubble, wild and coarse, spotted with grease and swept to the side under a faded baseball hat.

There's something familiar about the way he grins.

"Wow," the man says. He takes his time with the word; keeps it in his mouth long enough to taste.

Sei's mother emerges from the office and lingers on the threshold. The corner obscures half of her torso and face, but Sei can see how her eyes are wet and wide, like a dog's.

"Mom?" Sei says.

"Sei," her mother wavers. "This is your father."

The man leans over the counter and pets Sei's head. She recoils, and her body doesn't.

* * *

The man spends a second week in the clinic. He plays catch with Sei in the street and teaches her to swing a baseball bat.

"I'm sorry you never knew what it was like to have a dad," he says one day. Sei thinks about Stella's father, who read books aloud and played on playgrounds and taught Sei how to fix a clogged toilet because Sei thought it would be funny. How Sei has spent the night so many times that she has her own place at the dinner table.

"Yeah," Sei replies.

"I feel guilty about what happened with your mom, too," he says. "I know I was the bad guy. You might be my kid but you're also basically an adult. You're old enough to hear this."

Sei is fourteen, and she nods.

"I've done things in my life that I'm not proud of," he says. "Don't ever let me act like that again. Don't let me lose it. I'll keep me away from the big things, but I'm gonna need your help with the little ones."

"I think I understand," Sei says.

"That's good," The man grins. "Looks like I'm finally getting a second chance."

* * *

The first time Sei lets her father drink again, he laughs it off.

"You can't do that when I'm at school!" Sei says. "That's cheating!"

"Yeah, but it's just a little thing," he says. He switches the channel back to the police report and sighs. "I only had _one_. Can we just forget about it?"

Sei nods, and joins him on the couch. "Mom says you've found every way to put toxins in your body."

"Toxins?"

"Yeah. Drinking, and smoking and everything. She says it's slowly rotting your brain and killing you. Is it fun?"

"Oh, absolutely," he chuckles. "I need to let go once in a while. Maybe you should, too."

Sei takes a sip, and she coughs. They both laugh about it. When Sei finally clears her throat, she says, "How long is a while?"

"Depends on how many things I need to let go of," he says, and throws the empty bottle towards the trash. He misses, and it breaks on the floor like a star.

###  XIII.

Sei spends the night pulling broken glass out of her leg, staunching the cuts with office tape and the fabric of her pants. It's almost the worst she's ever dressed a wound, but there's nothing to spare.

A hostage situation is a bit like a playground, in that Stella would scream at Sei for the way she jumped over the atrium from the fifth to the third floor balcony. How her body becomes a canvas of scrapes, stretched together with sore muscles; a testament of flesh. How she's still faster and stronger than the others.

Things Stella would say:

  1. _I told you so! I told you so many times and you didn't listen. Why didn't you listen?_

  2. _You said you'd make it out. You promised me._




The other team is an assassin and a bomber. Sei trusts the bomber the most. He's a sturdy man in his late thirties, calm, definitely a leader by trade—not the type to make impulsive decisions, and certainly the type to leverage threat over actual massacre. The assassin is the real problem. Sei isn't sure if she's acting independently, or is an especially arrogant ally of the bomber's. She's impulsive. Kills flamboyantly, like it's a craft. Sei pushes the details out of her mind. She'll panic later, when she has time.

For now, she's trapped the assassin and herself on the third floor.

  1. _You're so stupid! Why do you always say you're fine when you're clearly not fine? It's like you choose not to think about yourself!_

  2. _Wait. That's exactly it. You think that hurting yourself doesn't hurt anyone else. But it does. It scares the shit out of me. Every day you put yourself in danger, you tell me you're going to be "fine", and I have to pretend like I believe it, and I don't! I'm scared every single time, Sei. I'm scared now._




Sei thinks about her father. About how buildings had a way of containing everything that scared her and how she's felt them burn down around her so many times that it surprises her when they don't. About how the bank was starting to feel more and more like a home.

  1. _You've been in the middle of so much pain and death and you never talk about it. Even though it's an impossible burden! Even though I'm right here, and I'd beg you to let me in, if you'd let me beg at all._




Sometimes in the middle of the night, Sei is a bit too warm, and her tinnitus sounds a bit too much like the echo of a fire alarm, and her gut always remembers exactly what to do.

Maybe that's what purpose is. Not just a sworn oath to do no harm, but the drive to break it and let her body bleed itself shut around its own survival. Sei has watched it happen before. Seen her own knuckles bloody and raw and watched them heal until her hands were just her hands.

She probably hasn't killed anyone yet. It's like the butterfly effect. How an insect flapping its wings sets off a chain reaction of tiny, insignificant events, and maybe the ladder is a few minutes late, and Sei finds one boy without realizing there's another until there's no building left to crawl back into. People die. Sei has watched it happen. Never quite felt it.

The assassin dips back into view, this time with purpose, and it's like a thunderstorm. Like the final time Sei's father came home. The certainty of violence permeates the air and she breathes it in, accepting out of necessity; trembling out of fear.

  1. _I hate you. I hate you so much it's going to break my fucking heart._




Sei falls back on her breathing exercises. In, and out; patient; quiet. It usually leads her back to Stella.

This time, all Sei finds is herself.

It's enough.

###  V.

Buster drives Stella's father's car to school and collects Sei and Stella from either side of the principal, all wearing sullen, exhausted faces. Sei has a bruise on her cheek, and Stella keeps glancing at Sei with extensive worry and moderate disappointment.

"Alright, what happened," Buster says as they pile into the car.

"He started it!" Sei yells.

"Sei punched a boy and she got suspended!" Stella says.

"Yeah, and now my hand really hurts."

Buster gets an amused twinkle in his eye. It's the closest expression to a smile Sei has ever seen him with. "Did you punch him the right way?"

"What do you mean? He curled up on the ground and started crying."

"I mean," Buster says. "You have to punch the safe way. If you break your hand it's no good."

"Yeah, that's why I finished him in one!"

"Trust me," Buster says. "I've punched out way more guys than you."

"He has," Stella says.

Sei frowns and adjusts the ice pack on her hand. The four finger joints closest to her knuckles are sore, and it feels like she stretched something in her thumb.

"Why'd you do it?" Buster says.

"Because he made Stella cry—"

"I did _not_ cry—"

"Yes, you _did_! You cried because he called you a—"

"Shut _up_! I would never, ever do _that_ to a _girl_!"

"I mean, it's still okay if you realize—"

" _Don't_ ," Stella scowls. Her face is bright red, and she turns away to the window. "When are you un-suspended?"

"Next Monday," Sei grumbles. "It's bullshit."

The sun flickers behind steel tresses as the car crosses the bridge into Uptown. Sei kicks a rock around the plastic floor mat, and Stella fiddles with the cupholder in her door. Eventually, Stella says: "You didn't have to do that, you know."

"I wanted to," Sei says. "You said you'd spit on any kid who called me the R-word. It's the same thing."

Stella thinks. Watches a few trees pass by and then gets distracted by a mosquito stuck inside the car. Cracks the window and concentrates again. "So you don't think I'm not... _normal_ , or anything? You're not afraid of me because people say I'm..."

"Nope!" Sei says. "No matter what, we're still best friends, right?"

"Y-Yeah," Stella says. "Of course." Then, under her breath, she adds: "No matter what." Sei doesn't hear that part.

When Buster pulls up outside the vet, Sei can hear her mother shouting at her father from the street. Stella gives her a sympathetic glance, and then looks at Buster, asking something with her expression. Buster looks back, and Sei is thoroughly confused.

Stella says, "I'll get lonely if—if you spend all week at home."

"I might have to," Sei says. "Dad is back again."

"Again?" Buster asks.

"Yeah. In the summer we made him leave. Now he's back."

"Sei kicked him in the private parts," Stella says.

"You should do it again," Buster says. "Just remember: always keep your balance low, feet on the ground, and keep your wrist straight when you punch. Your thumb should be on the outside of your fist next time." 

"Thanks, Buster."

"And remember," Buster says. "Never call the cops. Call me."

Sei smiles, an expression so defeated and gentle that it could explode.

###  XIV.

When the explosion finally happens, all Sei can think about are promises. How her body can still stand, and almost run. How she's colder than she's ever been. How it all spins in indecisive collapse and disoriented rubble and more endings than Sei can count on her fingers.

Snow gusts into the building in whole, loving breaths and melts on Sei's bare arms like it was always a part of her. Her few seconds at the edge are enough for a lifetime.

It's just a leap of faith. It's only ever been.

She takes it.

###  VI.

"W-we should go to prom," Stella stutters.

They're sitting on the front steps of Stella's school in an evening snowstorm. It's the kind where ice rains down in tiny grains, stinging, collecting on the ground in a slush that's not quite frozen. Stella wraps her scarf tighter. Her nose is dripping into her mouth behind the fabric, and her glove exposes a numb crescent of wrist to the elements—it's unpleasant, and Buster is late. Sei has apparently started smoking.

"I don't have anyone to go with yet, though," Sei says. "Who are you going with?"

Stella looks like she's going to pass out, and Sei cocks her head in inquiry. Stella says, "I-I mean... you. If you want. Sometimes best friends do that. It's not weird, or anything."

Sei giggles. "Really? You don't think it'll get us voted 'best couple' in the yearbook again?"

"I don't know how that happened!" Stella says. "You don't even _go_ here."

Sei extinguishes her cigarette in the slush. "I'll go with you if I can," she says. "I have Junior Valkyrie stuff in the evening—wait, is it okay if I go in my workout clothes?"

"No!" Stella shrieks, and bumps Sei in the shoulder. Sei's deltoid is almost as solid as Stella's fist. "No. You have to dress up. I mean—you should probably dress up."

"But I don't have any dresses," Sei says.

* * *

"Try these," Stella says. They're sharing the accessible changing room at some department store with a French name only Stella knows how to pronounce. Sei seems apprehensive, and Stella can't tell if it's because of the dresses or their price tags.

"I told you it's not going to look right, but I'll try," Sei says. "I still think I'm too... ripped. See?"

She takes off her shirt in one motion, and Stella tries to escape through the closed door.

"Where are you going?" Sei says.

" _Gods_ , I'm giving you some _privacy_ ," Stella hisses, and pushes the door again.

"I don't really mind," Sei says. "But I think you forgot to unlock—"

"Whatever!" Stella says. She flips the lock and pushes several more times. "Why can't—"

"Stella, it's a pull door—"

"I don't _care_! Just... tell me when you're done, okay! _Gods_."

Stella finally escapes into the hallway, where she presses herself into a corner like she could collapse into a black hole and die there. Sei rustles about in the dressing room for so long that Stella can tell she's having trouble.

"You should come see what I meant," Sei says.

Stella takes her hands away from her eyes and looks. "Oh."

"Yeah."

" _Oh._ Yeah, this is isn't right. I mean, you look fine, but you aren't... _you_."

"See, I told you! This is the same reason why I don't wear skirts at school."

"Yeah," Stella says. "Well, I guess there's always—"

* * *

Sei's father owns exactly one suit. It's a tuxedo that he wore to an interview at a fancy hotel a few years ago, back when he actually wanted to seem like he was trying. Now it's collecting dust in the back of Sei's mother's wardrobe next to everything else he'd bought for himself and left.

Sei tries it on. Tightens his tie like she knows it can't choke her.

It fits like it was hers to begin with.

* * *

" _Oh_ ," Stella says when she sees Sei. She's not sure if she's supposed to stare, or if that's still impolite, and she makes an awkward compromise.

"Sorry I'm late," Sei says. "I was helping the Major clean up, and then there was a car stuck in the snow on the way, and—"

"I figured. My dad already had to drive home, but he said to give this to you," Stella says.

Sei shakes snow out of her hair. "A flower? It's really pretty!"

"It's a boutonnière," Stella says. "I'm supposed to put it on your lapel."

"Lapel," Sei says. "Do I have one of those—oh no! I didn't bring you a corsage! I was supposed to go to the florist's after—"

"It's okay," Stella smiles. She brushes more snow off Sei's jacket. "You should keep the money."

"I don't care about the money," Sei says. "Hey, are we stuck outside now?"

"N-No, I got my hand stamped, and I have your ticket. There's no way a pair as well-dressed as us would get turned away. I just..."

"That makes sense. You're definitely really beautiful, Stella."

"I mean," Stella falters. "I'm just a regular girl."

Sei lowers her eyes. "Not to me."

Stella can see clouds of her own breath mixing with Sei's as her icy fingers fumble with Sei's breast pocket.

"Are you cold?" Sei says. "You're shivering."

"Just let me finish putting this on you and then we can go in, okay?" Stella says. She finally fits the flower through the buttonhole, and hesitates.

"What?" Sei says.

Stella almost doesn't break eye contact. It's like a fall that never quite ends.

###  XV.

Sei lands with the worst roll of her career: a scraping, snapping mess against the pavement that ends with most of the building on top of her. The first dozen minutes are adrenaline with nowhere to go. The next seven hours are so painfully boring she can't help but laugh about it.

* * *

Somebody asks Sei how she's feeling.

"I'm fine," Sei says. She tries to open her eyes and fails. "Where..."

"You're in my ambulance. Sorry. I have to file some paperwork, and I'm going as slowly as I can because I want you to be miserable."

Sei smiles. "Doctor van Kamp?"

"Jane Doe number eight."

"What happened?"

"An uprising. The White Knights are over, and the streets are at war. You're lucky someone brought you here instead of finishing you off. Nice fellow on a motorcycle. Called himself 'John'."

Sei opens her eye. The other is bandaged shut, and she gingerly probes the dressing.

"As far as I can tell, all of your body parts are still in your body. I also added some screws, just to make it awkward for you at the airport. The eye should be fine in a week if you don't touch it. The broken ribs are just broken ribs; we've dealt with those before. Keep the arm in the cast."

"Thank you," Sei says.

"Oh, and just to be clear: I don't know you, and you were never at this hospital. If I had suspected you were a former White Knight, I would have turned you in, even if we had rapport."

"I understand."

"I'll dispense with the sarcasm. You have to go. You have to eat, drink, sleep, and find a safe place, and you have to do it now. No more IVs for you," Doctor van Kamp says. "Even though you're a good kid."

* * *

Sei finds herself crouching in the alley behind a bar. She's been to the place a few times, usually with Stella—she definitely doesn't want to think about that right now. Not about promises, or fear, or whatever happens after guilt. She's fine. She ordered a few drinks, drank, and left to go vomit and cry in the alley like an ordinary person, and she's fine.

Sei unlocks her phone and receives three days of Stella's messages at once.

The thing about Sei's father is that he was ordinary, and guilty, and fearful somewhere under the dirt. Sei has worn his shoes before. She took them out of his wardrobe on a real date with real love and when that was over the shoes walked on her father's feet down under the bridge to Uptown, where used syringes sat unmarried from their caps—he was happy there, too. He was a horrible person who beat Sei's mother until she couldn't remember how she was hurt, but he was a person, and maybe that was the most horrible thing about him. That genetics weren't the only part of humanity he shared with Sei.
    
    
    3 Days Ago:Stella@20:01
    | Tell me you're safe.
    

On the way to the bar, the bodies of White Knights still dangled from streetlights and the tops of buildings, so burned and indistinguishable that they might as well be hers.
    
    
    3 Days Ago:Stella@20:20
    | I saw the news. I'm coming to get you.
    
    3 Days Ago:Stella@20:21
    | Please be okay, please.
    

The thing about corrupt cops is that they were people, too. It's not forgiveness. It's the truth. Sei is terrified of what that makes her.
    
    
    3 Days Ago:Stella@20:44
    | Buster is forcing me out of town, but I'll find a way. I promise. I'm not letting go.
    

A hypodermic needle is frozen to the asphalt behind the dumpster. Sei kicks it with the sole of her boot until its body shatters, leaving the point fixed in place.

The thing about saving people is that sometimes, the damage is done. Like all the scared girls who jumped anyway, and all the pills that didn't come back up, and all the naloxone that just went into a body and stayed there. All the hope that came and went. The things that burned. The things that needed to.
    
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@08:09
    | I wish I could have said anything.
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@08:10
    | Like if I could have stopped you somehow, I would have. If I could have just put everything on the table maybe this wouldn't have happened. Maybe it's my fault for holding back.
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@08:12
    | I'm not ready to say goodbye to you yet.
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@08:16
    | Don't make me have to say goodbye. Please.
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@08:17
    | I love you.
    

Sei skips the rest of the messages. It would be too cruel to read them.

She makes the call.

###  VII.

A list of instincts:

  1. Sei's mother is unconscious on the couch, face-down, her hair spread around her like a backwards wig.

  2. Sei shakes her mother and she wakes up gasping. Un-drowning.

  3. Sei chain smokes the rest of her pack on the front steps of the veterinary clinic. They're disgusting menthols, and Sei briefly wonders if she's smoking them so her father won't. If that's somehow saving him.

  4. She breathes through her harmonica until her breath freezes to the mouthpiece. Her legs are shaking. It's music, almost.




In the two years since her father returned, Sei has learned a lot. As in, she's passed JV with flying colors and is still failing out of remedial education. _There's only so much we can do. She's probably not going to get a third repeat year,_ the guidance counselor had told her mother. _Although the Valkyrie Corps would adore her._

Sei's mother reacts to most things with a tired expression, where her head nods but her eyes stay pinned in the same place. The clinic is going under and even the rich clients Stella's mother refers are barely enough. It shows on her face.

"Hi, dad," Sei says.

"Ah, my favorite daughter," he says.

"Of course I'm your favorite!" Sei says. She pulls a kitchen chair into the space between her parents and sits backwards. "I'm your only one."

"How was school?"

"We're going over rescue protocols in JV," Sei says. "Today a guest speaker came in and demonstrated how to use naloxone."

"Oh, that. Well, there's really no junkies worth saving, but do what you want."

Sei forces a smile. "Three doses are in that brown plastic bag by the fire extinguisher."

Sei's father grunts and looks away. "Did you take my smokes again?"

"Nope," Sei lies.

"Well," her father says. "You know what they say. Like father, like daughter. It ought to be a rite of passage at this point."

Sei nods. Sits on the empty pack of menthols in her back pocket until he leaves with a second beer and her mother. Later, he turns the lights out without noticing Buster's car parked in the alleyway across the street.

As always, Sei sleeps after they do.

* * *

Sei drops out on Thursday. She has three months left in her sophomore year in high school and her mother is alone in the clinic for five days a week. Her father is everywhere. In the clinic, in shards of glass, in bruises on her mother's face, in drugs dealt—anywhere but his own veins.

The first time Sei saves her father, he almost doesn't wake up. His leg is sore for the next week because Sei didn't tap the air out of the naloxone before she did the shot. Sei has never kissed anyone, but she imagines it's a bit like rescue breathing. You feel the person's breath and stubble and the texture of their lips, even after it's done.

Sei thinks about Stella. About how she's seventeen and how enlisting means they won't see each other until they're actually adults. About how Stella still recoils every time she sees a White Knight on the street. About how the clinic is a front for Sei's father's drug dealing and Stella sits on Sei's bed like she's trying to memorize every way to leave.

Sometimes butterflies come out of their chrysalis too early. Their wings are wet and frightened and they fall gently from the remains of their home into the milkweed below. It's the same thing, really.

There's no other choice but to leave.

* * *

In the end, Sei never loses control. Violence is her father's love language and Sei has learned enough to translate it. Every fight is a continuation of all the past fights that never ended, like a building burning from the top down, crushing itself flat until the original cause can hide in its own damage. Sei can't remember the reasons anymore. It would break her heart.

Sei is a child and she has saved her parents' lives more times than she can count. It's not just used syringes. It's bruises, presence, space, and everything in between. Every responsibility she shouldn't have to take, and did. Every night she could have forgotten, and didn't.

It ends three days before Sei deploys for basic training, with a decision, raw willpower, and everything her father has ever taught her.

Sei doesn't think about the details. The result is enough.

The last time Sei sees her father, he's crawling along the cracked sidewalk in front of the clinic, frantically glancing between Sei and the house and Sei's trembling white-knuckle grip on his baseball bat. Sei's mother is slumped against the doorway, trying not to look and failing, like the house itself were vomiting, like tears were big enough to come out of families and drown whatever was left of the people.

He leaves, and it is only ugly.

When it's over, Sei closes the front gate. Her voice is so hoarse that she feels the shreds when she breathes. Feels every footprint stamp out one of his, every step jolt another shock of life through her bones, up through her chest and into her throat.

In the light, Sei's shirt is dripped long and jagged from her nosebleed.

"I'm sorry," Sei chokes.

"No," Sei's mother says. Her hair is grey and wispy, forehead wrinkled and eyes as deep as shipwrecks. "No. I'm your mother. I should have been your mother."

"He won't come back this time," Sei says. "I promise."

Sei's mother nods, tired. "I'll miss him."

"I know," Sei says.

Sei's mother nods again. They both cry about it.

###  XVI.

Stella lunges and slaps Sei in the face. It's more painful than both of them expected.

"Why would you do that to me!" Stella sobs. "Gods, I thought you were dead—"

"I'm sorry," Sei says. "Stella, I'm—"

"What did they _do_ to you, Gods—"

"I'm okay now. I'm really—"

"No you're _not_! Of course you're not okay—your bandages—just fucking _look_ —"

"I did this to myself, it's not a big—"

"No, you didn't. It's not your fault," Stella says. "Don't ever say any of this is your fault. Please."

Buster takes a hard right to avoid a car turning from the wrong lane. The street is still littered with barricades and burnt debris, plowed indifferently onto the boulevard. Ice encases the husks of buildings like candle wax—the remains of firefighting in subzero temperatures. Sei's done that more than a few times. This time it's not quite beautiful.

Sei holds Stella's hand, gentle, like it could shatter.

"Help," Sei says. Her voice is tiny.

"Okay," Stella says. "Okay."

Sei closes her eyes, and feels.

Stella starts: "We're just going to take one breath, okay? It's already perfect. There's no way it can't be. We're just going to let it happen."

Sei nods. Their breath turns to smoke and disappears.

"Again," Stella says. "You can do this. Hold for just a second this time, okay? I'm doing it, too."

  1. Sei's thumbnail is ragged, bitten down into tiny, gentle teeth that Stella can barely feel.




"Back to normal. We'll do two when we pass that intersection, okay?"

Sei nods again. Stella can't see her face, but she knows how Sei looks when she's thinking about the word 'can't', and every possible way it could leave her mouth.

"Two," Stella says.

  1. In the past three days, Stella has thought of every way she could fail to say goodbye, and now she's lost them. Scattered, like a deck of cards.

  2. _I hate you,_ Stella was going to say. She loses that, too.




"Three," Sei blurts. Stella doesn't expect to smile at that.

  1. Stella was twelve when she sat down on a playground next to a girl covered in scrapes and declared, _You're going to be my friend._

  2. Maybe it was still that simple.

  3. Maybe Stella had always been brave enough.




"Your pulse is really fast," Sei says.

"I'm getting a lot of oxygen," Stella says. "And _you're_ getting distracted."

Sei shrugs. "Four."

  1. In another world, Stella never insists on going back to the park, and a different best friend looks into both of her real eyes.

  2. They sleep together under a blizzard and Stella knows anything about what she wants, or what's possible.

  3. She takes her to prom. Pins something on her coat, and their faces are so close.

  4. Maybe it's not just a wish.




"I shouldn't have hit you," Stella says. "Ever."

"Hey, I'm fine" Sei says. "It's no—"

"I wish you weren't," Stella says. "I wish you were scared, or hurt, or angry—about _everything_ , not just—"

"Shh. In for five," Sei says.

  1. In another world, Stella misses this one.

  2. Maybe that's what home is. Less like a fixed place and more like the inside of a moving car.

  3. Like falling for the same person over and over; never quite star-crossed and never quite lovers.

  4. Like letting go, and letting go again.

  5. Like holding everything worth saving.




Stella drops their hands onto the middle seat, warm against car leather.

"I _am_ scared," Sei whispers. "I'm more scared that I've ever been."

"Me too," Stella says. "Me too."

Sei finally falls asleep somewhere along the way, straining against her seatbelt until Stella unbuckles it and lets her fall against her shoulder. It's not long or restful, but it's together.

It's enough.

###  VIII.

In the morning, Sei submits her papers to the enlistment office and takes the long way back. She's spent most of the night on the phone with Stella, breathing one breath at a time until only the bat was left to let go of.

The park where she met Stella five years ago is still there, with the same equipment overshadowed by former saplings, drowned in cicadas and oppressive sweat. Sei rests the bat behind the dugout and forgets it.

Kids were kind of like dandelion seeds. They'd float in and out of the park, only sometimes taking root, and eventually time would take a deep breath and blow them all to new homes. Sei is probably still the fastest and the strongest, but that probably didn't matter anymore. It was time for the world: time for office jobs, and bills, and failure, and taking public transit every day without learning anyone's name.

It's peaceful, almost.

There's a few sidewalk panels that are newer than the rest. The park board must have ripped out the ones with bullet holes and filled it smooth sometime after Stella got hurt. It didn't really change anything. Just replaced a scar with a bigger scar.

"Hey," Stella says.

Sei is sitting on the bottom of the metal slide. It used to get so hot that it'd burn; now in the shade, it's cold against Sei's legs.

"What's going to happen?" Stella says.

"If I get accepted, I'm going to training. Major says it takes about a year, and that I'll really only be away from my unit around the holidays."

"Are we still going to be friends?"

Sei looks shocked. "Of course! Why wouldn't—"

"Because _everything_ is changing. I have a year left of high school with no best friend, and my dad wants me to start joining him on the business side, and—and gods, it feels like the whole world is screaming at me to grow up."

"Stella, we _are_ grown up."

"I just—" Stella stutters. She traces her finger in the sand, chasing grains after other grains. "We grew up together, and now—"

Sei shrugs, and forces a smile. "Yeah. And now we keep growing."

Stella turns so Sei can only see the cybernetic half of her face. Her voice shakes. "I mean, if being a kid means being with you, I... I think I just want to be a kid for a little longer."

"I care about you, too," Sei says.

"I'm not ready to lose you, okay? I'm not ready to let you go, because I..."

Sei takes Stella's hand and wraps their fingers together. "I'm not letting go."

Stella leans into the touch. "Good."

Sei nods. "I promise."

Stella eventually lets Sei light a cigarette, and she looks out over the field. A couple of kids and a man are playing some variation of soccer on the baseball diamond, and a couple more kids are running down the street, both in the uniform of Sei's elementary school.

"Hey," Stella says. "Why do you think it happened?"

"Think what happened?"

"The rogue White Knight. What would make a grown man take a couple of kids hostage, and gouge one of their eyes out when he didn't get his way?"

Sei keeps smoking. "All they ever told me was that he was running away from something. Maybe the rest of the Knights were trying to hunt him down, and he needed power to negotiate with them. Most people who take hostages are trying to save themselves, or send a message."

"Do you think he picked us because I looked like the most useful hostage? Because I look like my family is rich?"

Sei frowns. "It's not your fault, Stella."

"I know," Stella says. She reaches her hand into Sei's personal space, and Sei passes the cigarette after a moment of confusion.

"I've never known what to say," Sei says.

Stella shrugs. "That's okay. That whole thing was pretty fucked up."

Sei gives up waiting and lights herself a second cigarette.

Stella continues, "Getting your eye gouged out by as cop is just part of an ordinary Glitch City childhood, I guess."

"I doubt it. The EMTs got really weirded out when I came in with three eyeballs."

Stella coughs. "Wait, _what_? You—you _had_ it?"

"I don't have it anymore, I just brought it to the hospital!"

Stella covers her face. "Oh gods, this is so embarrassing."

"I thought they could put it back in!"

"Why the fuck—"

"I couldn't help it! I was traumatized!"

"I can't believe my fucking eyeball has been in your hand. That's—what the _fuck_ , Sei!"

"I _know_! And sometimes I still have these weird nightmares about it! Like I'm fishing around in my jacket looking for my keys, and instead—"

Stella cringes with her whole body.

"That's not even the worst," Sei says. "In one dream I was trying to help you with your homework, and I was pointing the eye at the paper so you could see, but blood kept getting in the way, and then when I wiped it off you called me on the phone and started screaming at me because it hurt when I touched the eye—"

"That doesn't even make _sense_!"

"I _know_ , right?" Sei laughs. "Why would I ever help you with homework? You're basically the only reason I know anything."

Stella blinks. "Shut up. You're smart."

"Street smart, maybe," Sei says. She stubs out her cigarette in the sand and pockets the butt. "Looks like school just let out. We're about to be in the way of a bunch of kids."

Stella thinks. "We should move. Let's go."

* * *

Two days later, Sei moves. Stella is seventeen and she lets go of Sei's hand like she's still twelve. Like weeks were still predictable, and courage was something she didn't need until she was older, and love was something that made sense. Like wishes were more than just wishes.

"You'll be okay, right?" Stella says.

"Yeah," Sei says. "I'll be fine. I promise."

###  XVII.

Stella's bedroom is in the corner of the house, with two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that join the room to the trees and the night outside. The fires downtown are so far away Sei almost mistakes them for fireflies. That's what exhaustion does. Turns every little light and reflection into a gentle mystery.

Sei is on the floor with her phone and a plastic container of soup Stella's father refrigerated four days ago. It's normal. The carpet is normal, and the taste is normal, and she doesn't expect to start crying until she's in the middle of it.

"I couldn't do it," Sei chokes.

Stella's thumb traces over Sei's knee in tiny, helpless circles. "It's okay," Stella says. "It's—"

"No, it's not. I couldn't save _anyone_ , Stella."

"Hey," Stella says, offering her hand. Sei claims it against her chest; her skin a mess of dried sweat and blood, infused with debris to the point where it blackens Stella's knuckles.

"We're gonna be safe right now, okay?" Stella continues. "There's heat, and you could take a shower, and you have food—"

Sei holds tighter. "I missed you."

Stella nods. Tries not to let Sei see her tearing up. It doesn't quite work.
    
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@21:53
    | I'm so fucking stupid, Sei. I'm just a stupid girl with a stupid crush.
    
    2 Days Ago:Stella@21:54
    | I could've just said so.
    

"I think I should take a shower," Sei says.

Stella nods. "Are you going to be okay on your own?"

"I—" Sei starts. She can't finish. Shakes her head in the smallest no.
    
    
    Yesterday:Stella@03:12
    | I think I assumed I'd always have time to figure it out, and I don't. I'm so afraid to lose you, and now I'm losing you for reasons I can't even control.
    
    Yesterday:Stella@03:15
    | And even after everything I still don't know what I want. I'm still fucking terrified.
    

Sei is too exhausted to take anything off. Just sits under the water and watches gray sediment stream out of her hair and clothing.

"We'll probably need to change your bandages," Stella says.

Sei nods. "I know. This was just enough to get me home."

Stella lets go of Sei's hand to scrub soap over Sei's back. She's close enough to see the roots of Sei's hair: a tiny length of dark brown, and a sliver more of bleached yellow where the dye didn't make it all the way up. The muscle and the points of Sei's spine are knotted together like fists.

"Stella," Sei says. "I almost died."

"I know," Stella says. There's nothing else that fits.

"There's so many things I wanted."

"Yeah." Stella accidentally makes eye contact and undoes it. "Me too."

"We were going to get ice cream," Sei says. "And then there's Christmas, and the New Year, and that concert you invited me to, and—"

"And those can still happen," Stella says.

"But so many other people didn't get that."

Stella nods. Lets water run over her face so she can pretend she's still the one holding things together.
    
    
    Yesterday:Stella@19:48
    | I just want to know you're out there, and that you're okay. We don't have to be together, and it doesn't matter if it breaks my heart. It doesn't have to be about me.
    
    Yesterday:Stella@19:50
    | I've been so fucking selfish.
    
    Yesterday:Stella@19:57
    | I guess sometimes it's better to love someone and hurt for it, than to say nothing at all. Because saying nothing is already a kind of hurt. And maybe it hurts the other person, too.
    
    Yesterday:Stella@19:58
    | I regret that a lot.
    

Sei unwraps the bandages around her head. The eye under the bandage is blood red and surrounded with lacerations, and Stella cradles the other half of Sei's face like she's looking at her own reflection.

"It'll heal," Sei says.

"I'm sorry about the texts," Stella blurts. "I just said it because I thought you were dead, and now I made everything complicated, and—"

"It's okay. I didn't read all of them because I didn't know if..."

"You can read the rest of it," Stella says, quiet. "None of it has to mean anything."

"Stella, it matters. You can tell me how you feel."

Stella makes eye contact and doesn't let go.

A list of ways to give up:

  1. "I—" Stella starts. Doesn't finish.

  2. Sei takes off the rest of the bandages. Leaves them in a wet heap by the drain. They weren't going to hold on anyway.

  3. Stella briefly wonders if casts are supposed to be protected from water, and if she should escape to grab a plastic bag from under the kitchen sink.




"Why can't I stop this?" Stella says. "Why can't there just be one tiny way that I can ever save you from this stupid fucking world?"

Sei reaches for Stella's hand and squeezes it. "You're here," she says. "That's the way."

Stella can't tell if there's meaning in Sei's eyes that wasn't always there, of if she's just never looked deep enough.

  1. "Can I?" Stella says.

  2. "Yeah," Sei says.

  3. Stella kisses her.




"You're shivering," Sei says.

"Sorry," Stella says. "I've just wanted to do that for a while."

"Me too," Sei laughs. "Do it again."

The thing about saving people is that sometimes, it happens over and over again. Like picking up the pieces so many times that they cease to be broken and are simply a multitude.

Stella runs her hand through Sei's hair. Hugs so hard that she realizes it might actually hurt.

"We should get out," Sei says. "My fingers are all pruned."

Stella laughs. "Why did we do it like this?"

"Like what?"

"Have a first kiss. In my shower, fully clothed, at midnight on a workday as the world fucking burns itself to the ground."

"How else were you thinking it would happen?"

Stella shrugs. "I don't know. Hopefully?"

"Stella, you know I don't have a good sense of what other people are thinking! It was _never_ going to be me."

"I know," Stella says. "I just—I'm awkward, okay? I was afraid that you'd hate me for accidentally falling in love with you."

"That's the opposite of what I wanted!" Sei says. "I gave up on you in high school!"

"I—" Stella stutters. "I was—I was a stupid kid, okay?"

"It's been four years! You didn't confess until, like, today!"

Stella covers her face with her hands and sits down on the toilet. "I'm sorry!"

"Eh, it can't be helped," Sei says. "I guess you weren't ready."

"I was ready," Stella snaps. "I just wasn't sure if you were."

Sei starts wringing out her shirt. It rides up over her abs and Stella is almost certain that Sei isn't doing it on purpose, but it's definitely happening.

"Do you think I'm doing this on purpose?" Sei says.

"Um," Stella says.

"Stella, I'm doing this on purpose. I did a _lot_ of things on purpose."

"Whatever! I invited you to prom on purpose, so _there_."

"Yeah, and you kept saying things like 'we're going as friends' and 'I'm not a lesbian' and so I was respecting your boundaries!"

"Don't rub it in," Stella huffs. "Pass me a towel."

Sei sits down on the bathroom counter, rediscovers the container of soup, and finishes it off. "Wow," she says. "What a weird week."

"Tell me about it," Stella grumbles.

"I can," Sei says. "But honestly, I'll probably need a therapist."

"That's fair," Stella says. "Shit. Now we're both traumatized again."

Sei shrugs. "I'll deal with it tomorrow."

Stella nods.

Later, in the middle of the night, Sei curls up around Stella's leg like they're both still kids, but bigger. Sei is unconscious and Stella still hasn't internalized what's going on, and the city is still kind of on fire somewhere in the night.

It's almost peaceful. Like how satellites are sometimes just as beautiful as stars.

Stella lets go of Sei's hand. In the end, she's still there.

**Author's Note:**

> Every chapter was prompted by the corresponding major arcana, and the whole story is a fools journey. Strength (8) represents Sei, and the Star (17) represents Stella. In general most numbers under 20 including time stamps, ages, and lists have meaning corresponding to major arcana. I am a slut for number symbolism and Persona 3 Portable and I refuse to change.


End file.
